Google takes on aging in latest ‘moonshot’

Google is now searching for longer life, announcing on Wednesday the formation of a new health company focused on aging and associated diseases.

Arthur Levinson, the estimable former chief executive and current chairman of biotechnology giant Genentech, will lead the new venture, known as Calico.

The launch of an independent company represents an unusual tack for Google, which typically fosters out-there ideas internally through its secretive Google X division or invests in promising startups through Google Ventures. But the ambition of the concept conforms to mindset of CEO Larry Page, who has taken a series of bold bets since returning to the helm in the spring of 2011.

Google still earns most of its money from the ads that pop up with search results, but it’s also working on driverless cars, Internet-connected glasses, and stratospheric balloons that could help get more of the developing world online.

“Illness and aging affect all our families,” Page said in a statement. “With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives.”

Slowing the aging process promises considerable bang for the buck, because many illnesses appear to be the effect, not cause, of getting older, including cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and various forms of cancer.

“By the time you get really sick, it’s hard to put you back together again,” said Brian Kennedy, chief executive of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato. “But slowing aging delays the onset of all these diseases.”

Time published a cover story on the new venture on Wednesday, featuring a wide-ranging interview with Page. But ultimately neither he nor Google revealed the detailed plans for the venture, such as the intended avenues of research. The company didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry from The Chronicle.

There may be some personal motivation at play in these efforts. All of us age, of course, but Google co-founders, Page and Sergey Brin, both face specific health issues of their own. Page suffers from vocal cord never damage that has left him speaking faintly. And Brin has a genetic mutation that may leave him more susceptible to developing Parkinson’s disease.

Google has dipped a toe into the health field before, bringing data to bear on various problems, through initiatives like Google Flu Trends and investments in companies like genetic testing company 23andMe (co-founded by Brin’s wife, Anne Wojcicki, from whom he is reportedly separated).

Indeed, much of medical research today relies on advances in information technology that allow scientists to derive insights from vast data sets — and it’s a good guess that Calico will embrace such tools as well.

As Time reported: “Google is very, very good with large data sets. While the company is holding its cards about Calico close to the vest, expect it to use its core data-handling skills to shed new light on familiar age-related maladies. Sources close to the project suggest it will start small and focus entirely on researching new technologies.”

The mere fact that Google is stepping into this space certainly doesn’t mean it will achieve any breakthroughs. As with most medical research, advances will require considerable time and money, if they come at all. It’s notable that there haven’t been any runaway successes in private efforts to slow or reverse aging to date.

But there has certainly been progress, Kennedy said.

Drugs have been shown to slow the aging process in mice, including Rapamycin, which is already approved for other uses in humans.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Blackburn of UCSF shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2009 for work on telomeres, a kind of protective cap on the end of chromosomes that shrink as people age, and the enzyme known as Telomerase that replenishes their length. She and other researchers formed Telome Health Inc. of Menlo Park in 2010, to develop and sell telomere testing products.

Other scientists have focused on the role of protein misfolding and DNA mutations in aging, but increasingly it appears that the process is a complicated one involving all of these factors and more, Kennedy said.

The key thing holding up additional advances is a lack of resources, so Kennedy for one welcomes the entrance of Google and its very deep pockets into the field.

“We’re all speculating as to what they’re going to do, but it’s very exciting for the field,” he said.

Levinson, who is also and will remain the chairman of Apple, shared more about how the venture came about in a public Google+ post:

“When I served on Google’s board, Larry Page and I got to know each other well — and when he and Bill Maris (managing partner of Google Ventures) approached me about a venture that would take the long term view on aging and illness, I was deeply intrigued. For example, what underlies aging? Might there be a direct link between certain diseases and the aging process?”

“We agreed that with great people, a strong culture and vision and a healthy disregard for the impossible, we could make progress tackling these questions, and improving people’s lives.”

He added that Calico is a officially an abbreviation for the “California Life Company.”

“But if you’re thinking about cats, we like the old saying that they have nine lives…”